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Mar 3, 2021 - Energy & Environment

A look at Biden's expanding climate team

Ben Geman
Illustration of a green round table with the Earth as the top of the table.

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

The Biden administration's team of climate experts is getting bigger still.

Why it matters: President Biden is vowing a whole-of-government approach that weaves climate deeply into White House decision-making and the work of many agencies.

New hires

Jane Flegal has joined the White House Council on Environmental Quality as senior director for industrial emissions.

  • She comes from a climate role at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and other affiliations include an adjunct role at Arizona State University, per LinkedIn.

Noah Kaufman is now a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

  • He's on leave from Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.
  • Kaufman's a carbon pricing expert and has studied how those systems can work alongside other policies.

Catherine Wolfram is now the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for climate and energy economics.

  • The UC-Berkeley economics professor's research has spanned topics like electricity in Kenya, Ghana and India, and U.S. energy efficiency, Treasury said.

Jigar Shah, a veteran of the clean energy finance and development sector, is the new head of the Energy Department’s loan programs office.

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